Saturday, October 27, 2018

Mohali: Panic gripped 160 passengers on board a flight of private airlines IndiGo to Hyderabad when an announcement was made that the takeoff has been delayed as the aircraft was short of required fuel at the Chandigarh international airport on Friday.
The flight was called back by the air traffic controller. IndiGo officials said the flight was short of holding fuel and had to return to re-fuel.
One of the passengers said the aircraft was lined up for takeoff and was called back to get re-fuelled in the nick of time. There was a scene of panic inside the aircraft as passengers started inquiring why fuel was not re-filled.
Deepesh Joshi, official spokesperson of the airport, said, "IndiGo officials told us that the flight 6E-274 was put on hold for about 30 minutes due to some defence activity. So, the aircraft ran out of the holding fuel, because of which the aircraft had to be taken on the runway before retreating to the tarmac to get the holding fuel re-fueled."
No aircraft has any reverse gear to turn back, so lined up aircraft has to be taken on to the runway so that it get enough space to turn back to the tarmac.
27/10/18 Barinderjit Saluja/Times of India